Obese people 'cannot be healthy'

The idea that people can be obese but still healthy is a myth, the authors of a new study have concluded.

A team at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto examined more than 1,000 past studies involving in excess of 60,000 people to determine the effect of metabolic status on all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events.

They found there was no healthy pattern of increased weight on the heart, even if individuals remained healthy in other ways.

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Indeed, the participants were significantly more likely to experience attacks, strokes and congestive heart failure than people who were not overweight during a ten-year follow-up period.

Lead author Dr Caroline Kramer said in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine: 'These results show that if you're overweight, if you are already obese, you should make changes.'

Earlier this year, a University of London study found that British men in their 40s are more likely to be obese or overweight than women of the same age.

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